東華大學圖書館 |

Re-Contextualizing Audiences : = New Conceptualizations of User Interactions in Product Documentation Spaces.

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Re-Contextualizing Audiences :/
Reminder of title:	New Conceptualizations of User Interactions in Product Documentation Spaces.
Author:	Ranade, Nupoor.
Description:	1 online resource (117 pages)
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 83-05, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International83-05A.
Subject:	Internet. -
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=28688482click for full text (PQDT)
ISBN:	9798544204855

Re-Contextualizing Audiences : = New Conceptualizations of User Interactions in Product Documentation Spaces.
Ranade, Nupoor.

Re-Contextualizing Audiences :New Conceptualizations of User Interactions in Product Documentation Spaces. - 1 online resource (117 pages)

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 83-05, Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--North Carolina State University, 2021.

Includes bibliographical references

RANADE, NUPOOR. Re-contextualizing Audiences: New Conceptualizations of User Interactions in Product Documentation Spaces. (Under the direction of Dr. Jason Swarts.) The goal of this dissertation is to re - contextualize the ways in which technical communicators learn about audiences in product documentation spaces, especially in the software industry. Tech- nical writers write help content that users use to solve their problems. To do so, writers first conduct an audience analysis to know who the users are and how they access the content. While interacting with content, users sometimes become content (and data) producers. The content created by them can provide writers with users' behavioral insights, characteristics, and information on the methods that they use to access content. So far, limited research has been conducted on analyzing content produced by users. This dissertation describes how users' interactions create content, what can we learn about users from analyzing that content, and how does such an analysis change the roles of technical communicators. These concerns are condensed into two main research questions: 1) How can we learn about users from implicit interactions with content? 2) How does analyzing content created by audiences impact the role of technical communicators? The research was conducted in two stages. First, 19 practitioners from 13 different organizations across the US were interviewed to collect inputs on product documentation spaces where users in- teractions led to content creation. Three out of the 13 spaces found, were picked for further analysis. The first case study was a pull request on GitHub where a user edited the documentation to add few new lines of content which, within a few days and with few interactions with the corresponding or- ganizations' stakeholders, were merged with the public facing product documentation content. The second case consisted of a study on data analytics where users' interactions were tracked through 3 different tools - Google Analytics, Pendo, and Salesforce. The third case study involved a user's task of reporting a product documentation issue on GitHub. Each case study was viewed as an actor-network. In the second stage of the research, the Actor Network Theory (ANT) approach was used to analyze each case study to trace the process of how users' interactions destabilize heteroge- neous product documentation networks, and how technical communicators can stabilize them by assuming roles, undertaking responsibilities, and performing negotiations with stakeholders and other actors. The two important findings of this project revealed through the case study analyses are that 1) (Implicit) Audience interactions reveal audience needs 2) Technical communicators can benefit from interdisciplinary skill sets to play multiple roles such as the software tester, moderator, data analyst, etc. to create and maintain effective product documentation spaces. A significant contribution to the field is a generalized methodological framework, Planning-Implementation-Testing, which can be used to conduct audience analysis for studies outside of the case studies mentioned in this dissertation. The limitations of this project stem from using user data ethically leading to privacy and surveillance concerns. Future research will look at such concerns more closely.

Electronic reproduction.
Ann Arbor, Mich. :
ProQuest,
2023

Mode of access: World Wide Web

ISBN: 9798544204855Subjects--Topical Terms:

527226
Internet.
Index Terms--Genre/Form:

542853
Electronic books.

Re-Contextualizing Audiences : = New Conceptualizations of User Interactions in Product Documentation Spaces.
LDR:04708nmm a2200349K 4500 001 2363256
005 20231121104546.5
006 m o d
007 cr mn ---uuuuu
008 241011s2021 xx obm 000 0 eng d
020 $a 9798544204855
035 $a (MiAaPQ)AAI28688482
035 $a (MiAaPQ)NCState_Univ18402038888
035 $a AAI28688482
040 $a MiAaPQ $b eng $c MiAaPQ $d NTU
100 1 $a Ranade, Nupoor. $3 3704013
245 1 0 $a Re-Contextualizing Audiences : $b New Conceptualizations of User Interactions in Product Documentation Spaces.
264 0 $c 2021
300 $a 1 online resource (117 pages)
336 $a text $b txt $2 rdacontent
337 $a computer $b c $2 rdamedia
338 $a online resource $b cr $2 rdacarrier
500 $a Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 83-05, Section: A.
500 $a Advisor: Fedukovich, Casie;Silva, Adriana de Souza e;Pigg, Stacey.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--North Carolina State University, 2021.
504 $a Includes bibliographical references
520 $a RANADE, NUPOOR. Re-contextualizing Audiences: New Conceptualizations of User Interactions in Product Documentation Spaces. (Under the direction of Dr. Jason Swarts.) The goal of this dissertation is to re - contextualize the ways in which technical communicators learn about audiences in product documentation spaces, especially in the software industry. Tech- nical writers write help content that users use to solve their problems. To do so, writers first conduct an audience analysis to know who the users are and how they access the content. While interacting with content, users sometimes become content (and data) producers. The content created by them can provide writers with users' behavioral insights, characteristics, and information on the methods that they use to access content. So far, limited research has been conducted on analyzing content produced by users. This dissertation describes how users' interactions create content, what can we learn about users from analyzing that content, and how does such an analysis change the roles of technical communicators. These concerns are condensed into two main research questions: 1) How can we learn about users from implicit interactions with content? 2) How does analyzing content created by audiences impact the role of technical communicators? The research was conducted in two stages. First, 19 practitioners from 13 different organizations across the US were interviewed to collect inputs on product documentation spaces where users in- teractions led to content creation. Three out of the 13 spaces found, were picked for further analysis. The first case study was a pull request on GitHub where a user edited the documentation to add few new lines of content which, within a few days and with few interactions with the corresponding or- ganizations' stakeholders, were merged with the public facing product documentation content. The second case consisted of a study on data analytics where users' interactions were tracked through 3 different tools - Google Analytics, Pendo, and Salesforce. The third case study involved a user's task of reporting a product documentation issue on GitHub. Each case study was viewed as an actor-network. In the second stage of the research, the Actor Network Theory (ANT) approach was used to analyze each case study to trace the process of how users' interactions destabilize heteroge- neous product documentation networks, and how technical communicators can stabilize them by assuming roles, undertaking responsibilities, and performing negotiations with stakeholders and other actors. The two important findings of this project revealed through the case study analyses are that 1) (Implicit) Audience interactions reveal audience needs 2) Technical communicators can benefit from interdisciplinary skill sets to play multiple roles such as the software tester, moderator, data analyst, etc. to create and maintain effective product documentation spaces. A significant contribution to the field is a generalized methodological framework, Planning-Implementation-Testing, which can be used to conduct audience analysis for studies outside of the case studies mentioned in this dissertation. The limitations of this project stem from using user data ethically leading to privacy and surveillance concerns. Future research will look at such concerns more closely.
533 $a Electronic reproduction. $b Ann Arbor, Mich. : $c ProQuest, $d 2023
538 $a Mode of access: World Wide Web
650 4 $a Internet. $3 527226
650 4 $a User needs. $3 3682501
650 4 $a Collaboration. $3 3556296
650 4 $a Technical communication. $3 3172863
650 4 $a Documentation. $3 774384
650 4 $a Teams. $3 3546566
650 4 $a Audiences. $3 618475
650 4 $a Actor-network theory. $3 880998
650 4 $a Information overload. $3 3564416
650 4 $a Information seeking behavior. $3 3563454
650 4 $a Feedback. $3 677181
650 4 $a Web studies. $3 2122754
650 4 $a Communication. $3 524709
650 4 $a Websites. $2 gtt $3 1062467
655 7 $a Electronic books. $2 lcsh $3 542853
690 $a 0643
690 $a 0646
690 $a 0459
710 2 $a ProQuest Information and Learning Co. $3 783688
710 2 $a North Carolina State University. $3 1018772
773 0 $t Dissertations Abstracts International $g 83-05A.
856 4 0 $u http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=28688482 $z click for full text (PQDT)